All posts published here are presented as casual conversation pieces to provoke thought in some direction or another, they do not necessarily represent fixed opinions of the Inner Council, as our work exists beyond the spectrum of bound statement and singular clause.
Talking with the Inner Child
Birthing our inner child can be a slow process. They represent our spiritual self and its development and our readiness to integrate towards inner wisdom. There are many considerations that need to be made before the time is right for them to come forward and use their voice to express themselves. The inner child workshop has been developed to make sure that our approach is delicate enough for our inner child to demonstrate vulnerability and structured enough for them to demonstrate strength. When we feel apprehension from our inner child, we must respond with encouragement to nurture safety and enthusiasm to nurture curiosity.
There are times where we can feel a lack of communication or a distance from our Inner Child. A period of silence can take us away from our Inner Child work, simply because we don’t think it’s working. There were times that we as children lacked a voice, we lacked the ability to describe how we felt and to feel understood. These were often times where emotions sat, built up and stagnated. Repressed emotions can become energy blockages and trapped expressions that stay dormant until we turn our attention to them again or until our Inner Child pushes them forward to be dealt with. When the time comes to process these energies there can be a mute, or undecipherable wall, an asphyxiated energy blockage wedged in our path that has no seeming ability to communicate.
If you are having a challenge in connecting with your inner child during meditation, we often bring in some dynamics like dancing or spiraling so that your inner child becomes interested in the movement which always signify a space in order to breathe. You can also creep up on your inner child and make some strange noises to get their attention. Hiding behind a rock or a tree and then making animal noises, then dancing out onto the scene often enlivens the inner-child’s interest to who this could be. Try to think what entrance would invigorate your inner child’s interest and imagination. The more you demonstrate your efforts to soften the edges, the more creativity your inner child can use in their approach.
During these times, one option is to get creative and find an easier route for interpretation to find its way to us. One way that often works is to take the inner child to the beach and ask them to to draw a picture on the sand. This method of communication gives more variability to the inner child as pictures can be as cryptic as necessary at least to begin a dialogue into a challenging subject.
Marie-Louise Von Franz in Alchemical Active Imagination mentions that the more cryptic or less accessible a given symbol of the subconscious, the more long term or significant the underlying metaphor holds for us and the longer it will take for an interpretation. Just as there are symbols reserved for the family crest and epic transformations along our journey, there are also simple interpretations that are quickly understood and may be valuable for the short term.
Opening a narrative
We can now elaborate this idea alongside all forms of artistic expression, or to simply ask for a story. In The Life of Pi, Pi tells of his great and treacherous escapade from his survival on a small boat in the form of animal archetypes. Here he is avoiding the immediate pain of reiterating his own violent and inexplicable actions. He instead describes Richard Parker, the wild tiger character which arose within him and tormented him during his ordeal at sea, in the limited confines of a small craft.
Another form of inner communication is to ask our inner child to give us a dream to remember. As we emerge from sleep we can feel the residue of a sentiment and follow the feeling to a memory. This platform of communication is open to the terms of our inner child who can divert us from an uncomfortable direct truth and lead us along with clues which allow us to slowly integrate deeper aspects that remain unintegrated.
What appears to present the best results is if we imply techniques to our inner child and allow them, on their terms, to put forward what needs to be shared. In return we can be receptive and to accept vagueness or ambiguity in the communication as a mature approach. Clues can be captured in journal writings and drawings, paint pictures to take pride of place upon the fridge to allow external reflection. The key here is to not lock clues away or slowly forget about them. Our inner child may be quiet, but they are always here, aware and sensitive of our presence. The more we creatively interact with our inner child, the greater the trust relationship we can eventually establish with them and once we’ve re-solved a deeply blocked energy, we have improved tools to communicate and interpret the subconscious.
Click here to visit our Inner Child Workshop page to find out more.
